If only the bill had contained the word "deer," then perhaps the possum jokes could have been stopped flat. If the bill had made clear that someone who hits a deer on the highway can take home the carcass and eat it, maybe Tennessee would have been spared all the raccoon cookbooks, the dead-skunk songs, the bumper stickers, the snickering headlines, the laughter that has lighted up the Legislature for the last few weeks.

But no. With an unerring genius for the kind of thing that makes many Tennesseans squirm, the author of the bill decided to phrase it this way: "Wild animals accidentally killed by a motor vehicle may be possessed by any person for personal use and consumption."

In other words, it would be legal to eat road kill. Legal to eat the thousands of squirrels, opossums, raccoons and rabbits that meet a painfully horizontal death every year beneath rubber tires.

From the clamor of the reaction, it seemed as if the state government had ordered a reversion to Tennessee's mountain-man roots, closing the groceries and forcing residents to hunt for their supper. "Grease the skillet, Ma! New bill will make road kill legal eatin'," read a headline in The Knoxville News-Sentinel last month.

Radio show hosts had a field day, and Tim Burchett, the state senator who proposed the law, was inundated with comic cookbooks and road kill stew tips. One of the bumper stickers he received read, "Cat--The Other White Meat." (Actually, cats and dogs were exempted from the bill.)

As it happens, there is a legitimate-sounding premise to the legislation. Burchett was contacted by a constituent who was fined after he accidentally hit a deer and then gave the meat to a migrant family. The law currently requires such accidents be reported immediately to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, which must tag the animal before it can be consumed.

The wildlife agency estimates that 10,000 collisions between vehicles and deer occur in Tennessee each year. And without enough wildlife officers to tag each deer and with citizens forbidden to eat a carcass until it is tagged, Burchett believes the tagging requirement is an infringement upon personal liberty. Not to mention a waste of perfectly good venison.

"I know, because it's Tennessee, everyone's going to make us look like a bunch of hayseed rednecks, and I understand that, and I know the media's getting a big kick out of this," Burchett said. "But after all, the government's supposed to help people with their problems, and this is just a common-sense thing."

Burchett said he wrote "wild animals" into the bill instead of deer in case the state regulates other big-game animals around Tennessee, a move that seems unlikely.

The senator, not uncomfortable with publicity, acknowledges a certain taste for legislation that many have considered off the wall. Among his proposed bills over the years have been measures to require the castration of child molesters and stray animals, and to make driver's license applicants pay for their own interpreters if they do not speak English.

Burchett's latest proposal raised concerns at the wildlife agency that motorists would deliberately try to "bumper-hunt" deer by running them over and claiming it was an accident. Burchett agreed to add an amendment that allows consumption of road kill as long as the driver notifies the local police within 48 hours. The agency then signed off on the bill, which is expected to pass.